Black and White
by ShortInsomniac
Summary: One-shot. What happened the afternoon Connor Murphy took his life. Zoe remembers the last fight she had with him, and his attempt at an apology. Also, Larry might be a borderline alcoholic? I dunno; I didn't intend it that way, but that's definitely what I got from how I wrote him in this story when I reread this. Oops. Warnings: language, alcohol use, mention of drug use, suicide.


Black and White

Connor seemed different when he came home that evening, quieter. He didn't even give Zoe so much as a "fuck you" when she asked why he was coming in so late. He went to the kitchen and then went straight up to his room at the end of the hall and closed the door gently behind himself. _Gently_? Connor Murphy closed the door _gently_? That seemed so out of the norm, but Mom and Dad weren't home, so Zoe couldn't go looking for one of them to talk to, and she definitely wasn't about to go to Connor's room to ask him what was up.

 _Not after last night,_ she thought.

The night before, as she was practicing her guitar in the den, he had come in, saying that he had a headache and she needed to shut the goddamn noise off. She defiantly told him no, and he yanked the amp's cord out of the wall. She yelled. He yelled back. She stood up and leaned the guitar safely against the wall so she could confront him more easily. Angrily, Connor yelled louder, getting in her face. Zoe pushed him away and shouted something she would later regret and even later would deny ever saying. He pushed her harder and called her a bitch, sounding truly hurt, but she didn't care. She fell back onto the couch and stared up at him, daring him to move or to say anything else.

In the end, they both went to their separate rooms, crying tears of anger.

At breakfast, he tried to apologize, but she refused to accept it. He may have seemed sincere, but she doubted he actually was. His eyes were red from crying. From weed, she decided to believe, however as she rolled her eyes and walked past him wordlessly to the pantry.

Nearly an hour after Connor got home, Mr. Murphy came in from working all day, got a beer from the fridge, and came out to the living room where Zoe was sitting, reading her book.

"Hey, kiddo," he said as he popped the can open and took a swig. "How's it going?"

"Fine," she said. "How was work?"

"Fine," he conceded, nodding. "Hey, um, you didn't take the juice out of the fridge, did you?"

She knew that by _juice,_ Larry meant _vodka._

"No, why?"

"It isn't there, and I was wondering if you took it," he said. "You could tell me if you did, Zo."

"I didn't," she shook her head insistently. "Maybe Connor did."

"Connor doesn't drink," Larry chuckled. "You remember New Year's."

On New Year's Eve the previous year, Larry had let them try champagne for the first time. Zoe had handled her little half-flute just fine, but Connor, Connor immediately vomited. He said he didn't like the way it made his head swim and the bitter, burning sensation as it went down his throat. She still thought it odd, especially since she had seen him high more than once, and twice she had caught him snorting some crunched up pills; mostly, though, it was weed. Connor loved the weed. Somehow, alcohol was different for him.

"Right," she nodded, but she remembered Connor holding one of his arms as though he were hiding something when he made his way past her up to his room from the kitchen. She shook her head, deciding she didn't care. _Let him make whatever stupid decisions he wants,_ she thought bitterly, and replaced her nose in her book.

Cynthia arrived a little while later from her friend's sewing circle. Cynthia was terrible at sewing, but that didn't stop her from attending the meetings almost religiously every week at three o'clock on Wednesday and six o'clock on Saturday. She had a big bag of poorly stitched handkerchiefs; she gave one to Larry, which she had sloppily monogrammed with a little blue "L" in one corner, and another with a little pink embroidered flower to Zoe. They thanked her politely to please her, both inwardly deciding that the handkerchiefs would go into their sock drawers and never again see the light of day.

"Where's Connor? I made one for him, too," she beamed.

"In his room," Larry and Zoe answered together, their tones indifferent.

Mrs. Murphy grabbed a handkerchief out of her bag, which was now resting on the arm of the couch, and she went up the stairs and down the hall, leaving her husband and daughter in the living room in silence. A few minutes later, she returned, handkerchief still in hand and a look of confused disappointment on her face.

"No luck?" Zoe said, not even looking up from her book.

Her mother shook her head. "No. He said he was taking a nap and he wouldn't come to the door."

"How did he seem?" Zoe asked curiously.

"Quiet. How did he seem to you when you saw him?"

"The same; quiet," Zoe responded.

"Do you think he's alright?" Cynthia asked, concerned.

"I'm sure he's just being Connor," Zoe sighed as she turned the page of her book.

Larry finished his beer and went to the kitchen to rinse the can and toss it in the recycling bin; then he helped Cynthia with dinner. Zoe finished her book and went upstairs to put it back on her desk. The hall was flooded with the noise of Connor's too-loud music. It hurt her ears, so she pounded on the wall and shouted for him to turn it down a little. Usually, he was courteous enough to turn it down a couple notches, but this time, the volume never changed. So she hit the wall again.

"Connor!" she yelled. "Turn the fucking music down! I don't want to have to ask again."

Still, the volume didn't go down.

" _Connor_!" She hit the wall again.

Nothing.

Agitated, she stomped out of her room and went to his door. Her knuckles burned from knocking so hard on the wall, but she decided to try one more time, this time at his door.

"Connor, open the door. I want to talk."

She hated to admit it, but Zoe Murphy was starting to panic now. It wasn't like him to completely ignore someone. At the very least, he should have been shouting back at her. But the whole hallway was painfully silent except for the blaring of his music.

"Connor!" she screamed as she jiggled the doorknob, not turning it but giving him a little bit of a warning that she planned on coming in if he didn't let her in.

Her hand was shaking as she wrapped it around the cold metal doorknob and turned it. It was unlocked. That was so unlike him; he usually did everything in his power to keep people out of his room. Abruptly, she swung the door open before she could change her mind and she was met by pitch black darkness, filled only with the grating of the music and the sick smell of alcohol and blood.

 _God, no, that couldn't be it. No. There was no possible way._

She flicked the light switch up and froze, finding herself face to face with a scene she never could have imagined in her wildest dreams or her most sickening nightmares. Connor was lying on his back in the bed, looking almost asleep save for the blood that soaked his sleeves and the comforter below him. He was so pale, paler than normal. Beside the bed on the little shelf he used as a bedside table was the missing bottle of vodka, nearly empty, and an open prescription pill bottle, lying on its side to reveal its horrible naked emptiness. Sticking out of the right pocket of his hoodie, she saw what looked to be a note.

 _No. NO! No, no, no no, no no no no no_

She screamed and ran to the bathroom across the hall, hurling her guts up into the sink, unable to make it to the toilet in time. Sobs racked her body and she screamed again before another bout of vomit came.

"No, no, no, no, no," she sobbed, her voice becoming small.

She held her head and closed her eyes, rocking slightly, praying silently that she had only imagined what she had just seen in Connor's bedroom. She turned to leave the bathroom, caught sight of his lit doorway, and screamed again. This was something you read about in the paper or heard someone talking about online; this wasn't something that could really happen to someone you knew. People you knew didn't just take their lives, and they definitely didn't do it where their little sisters could find their bodies later. Zoe had to shut her eyes and turn her head a hundred eighty degrees away from Connor's door to be able to make it down the hall. When she made it to the stairs finally, she opened her eyes and ran down, fast.

"Mom!" she shrieked. "Mom! Mom, I – God…" Zoe couldn't bring herself to say it.

Cynthia turned around, eyes wide as they met her disheveled daughter in the doorway. "What is it?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, God," Zoe sobbed, running forward and wrapping her arms around her mother like a small child. "I…I didn't know what…Mom, Connor…I –"

"What happened to Connor? Are you okay? Is _he_ okay?"

"No," Zoe said, sinking to the floor and burying her face in her hands. "No, no, no, no, no…."

Without asking any questions or even saying a single word, Larry ran faster than Zoe had seen him run in her life toward the stairs. A moment later, she heard him screaming the same thing she had.

"NO!" he roared, and ran back down the stairs and out the front door into the driveway, slamming the front door behind himself.

Cynthia just stood there, frozen in place in the middle of the kitchen, fearing the worst and knowing in her heart that what she feared most was true. She saw her daughter falling apart at her feet just as her husband was probably falling apart out in the yard. The dinner was burning on the stove behind her, but she couldn't seem to move, couldn't seem to bring herself to turn around to switch the stove off or to step over her daughter and make her way upstairs. After a long time, Zoe's sobs became near-silent. Cynthia calmly turned the stove off, picked the phone up off the counter, and rubbed her eyes, dying inside as she dialed 9-1-1.

"Nine-one-one," the operator said. "What's your emergency?"

"I…my son," she said. She started to cry then. " _My son._ "

"Ma'am, what's wrong with your son?" the man on the other line asked.

"I think he's dead," she said.

"What happened?"

"I haven't gone to look," she whispered. "I…my daughter found him, and my husband…" Her breath shook as it left her lungs. "I don't know what happened. Please send someone."

"Yes, ma'am," the man said. "I will send someone right away. Please stay on the line."

"I don't know if I can," she said, her voice small.

"You don't have to talk anymore, but please stay on until they get there," he said.

"Thank you."

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Why the hell did I write this? This makes me so sad. I guess this was just for me to show how I don't think Zoe was completely faultless, even if Connor was awful to her (though I'm definitely not justifying his awfulness, just saying that maybe she was pretty bad, too). And maybe "Requiem" is a lie, because she had to feel** _ **some**_ **guilt and sadness; I mean, he was her** _ **brother**_ **after all, and to feel nothing after he's dead, even if he was cruel to her, is pretty heartless.**

 **If you want to read a story where Connor doesn't die – one that isn't your typical "Connor doesn't die fic" – then go check out my other** _ **Dear Evan Hansen**_ **story, "Step Into the Sun," if you aren't already reading it. There are about 24 chapters of it already out.**


End file.
